Safety is Job One...but not when YOU are paying the insurance costs.

Goings On LWV Issue 22 October 2009

Lack of oversight is the biggest problem facing the Laguna Woods Village community. The primary lack falls to the 4 boards responsible for the spending of every dime the owners shovel over month after month after month. Today I’m going to tell you about a little scene involving lack of oversight on the part of the Managing Agent which is Professional Community Management and one of our esteemed housing boards. One might ask, why wonder about this situation since PCM is not supervised or monitored in any way? This is the expected result of no oversight. Keep in mind that there are qualified people looking for jobs all over Orange County and far fewer jobs available than there are qualified people looking.

On October 6, 2009 at about 1:40pm a crew of at least 2 workers driving Laguna Woods Village Vehicles was working at 3083, Unit A. Two trucks were parked in the street directly outside the residence where the work was being done. One truck is California license number 6N85988; a Ford pick-up truck. The other was California license number P23549; a much larger capacity truck with racks for ladders and equipment.

As the resident observer drove past the scene it was noticed with horror that one of the workers propped a piece of lumber up on his ankle with his heel forming the lift needed from the ground, while the worker then used his circular saw to cut the piece of lumber. Clever lad.

The resident observer was so appalled by what was seen that they turned around and drove back to get the information provided. I have been asked to pass it along as part of just keeping track of things.

What would be wrong with this scene, you ask. Well, first of all why isn’t this man trained well enough to know that using a circular saw to cut a board resting on his ankle is an open invitation to disaster. All he has to do is slip or lose his balance for an instant and there would be hair, guts and eyeballs all over the place. It was far too beautiful an afternoon, they were wearing shorts and smiling and laughing, to disturb the beauty of the day.

Second, why wasn’t his crewmate concerned with such careless use of power tools? He, after all, would have been the one who would have had to call the rescue squad had the first complete fool cut himself. How do you suppose either of them would explain this little disaster to anybody? “Well, you see, I was just cutting this piece of lumber and like any rational, well trained, competent carpenter I was using MY BODY as a saw horse…..”

Did either of them stop to think for a single second of the consequences of their actions. Oh, heck no! They are not only really well paid, probably more per hour than the $41 per hour the gardeners are paid (see the United Budget numbers.) They are, after all, using really nasty power tools. But, part of their very pleasant compensation which includes a pension and retirement and probably unknown INCENTIVE PLAN, vacation, sick leave, parties, celebrations, etc. but also WORKER’S COMPENSATION INSURANCE which is State mandated and not exactly cheap. We won’t even discuss the involvement of OSHA if an accident had occurred.

Well, who pays for all of that? Why the OWNERS OF THE MANORS IN LWV. And what happens when there’s a Worker’s Compensation claim? The premium INCREASES. Let’s not forget DISABILITY which is also a very real possibility in the case of the irresponsible guy with the circular saw. Yup, he’d be on disability for as long as it took him to get his health back so he could again work at his lovely PCM job. Who pays for that? Oh, take a wild guess.

So, let’s see who’s responsible here. That would be PCM starting right up there with Russ Disbro and his buddy Jeffrey Olsen, Disbro’s little boy Donny and then down to good ole Milt Johns who is the General Manager of LWV and from him to Jerry Storage who is the director of Maintenance and Construction and from there to probably Jim Dyer who is in charge of carpentry and on down to the direct supervisor(s) of the two working on site and finally to the two bozos themselves! Oh, wait….let’s not forget the Third Mutual Board M&C Chairman, who apparently simply rubber stamps everything he is told by PCM and as long as he’s adored by “those he serves” he doesn’t seem to give a rip. And, who pays the bills?

Is it any wonder the board propping up a sink in one of the guard gate houses ….oops, I mean ambassador shacks….was left for months before a resident owner finally brought it to the attention of the plumbing staff? Yeah, boy, great oversight and supervision. What happens at the lowest level of the company is a mere reflection of what is really going on at the top.

The solution is FIRE PCM right now. We can’t afford this….even Bernie Madoff in his heydays couldn’t. Then let’s DISSOLVE GRF so we can get a real trustee.